"Oh, I always think a girl can't be too particular about those things," said Agatha, firmly. "Because suppose someone happened to see you! All you have to do then is to say, 'To tell you the truth, I'm engaged to Mr. ——,' whichever one it was. And there you are!"
"And suppose the same person found you with one of the others—what then?"
"Oh, that would be very unlucky. I don't believe I would ever be so unlucky as that. And, Lynn, now that I have taken you into my confidence and told you things, won't you make a friend of me? and let me give you a little advice?"
"Why, yes," said Lynn, smiling.
"It's about Mr. Lighton. You know he is so eligible and it would be so dreadful if, by any mismanagement, you let him slip through your fingers."
"Oh!"
"Yes, indeed; and men are so deceitful," continued Agatha, piously, "you can't tell a thing about them, you really can't. Now there was a case I knew; it was something like yours only not so disappointing, for the man had only two thousand a year. But he kept running after this girl, just the way Lighton does after you, and everybody thought he meant something. People kept expecting to hear the engagement announced; but it never came off."
"What was the trouble?"
"Why, you know, it was the queerest thing! he kept calling and calling and every time you'd think he was going to propose; but he never did. So the girl got mad. She said she simply wasn't going to stand it a moment longer, so she packed her trunk and went off to stay with some people in Toronto. She was not going to have any such nonsense. But it didn't do any good, for he married some one else."
"What a sad story!"